This application claims priority under 35 USC 119 of Japanese Patent Application No. 11-375112 filed on Dec. 28, 1999 in JPO, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device such as a copy machine or a facsimile machine with a copying function, and more particularly to an image forming device that is capable of scanning other documents of which copies are to be made while the machine is under copying operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming devices in the modern times are provided with an image memory so that scanned image of a document is stored in the image memory and later recorded on recording sheets by a recording unit (printer). As a result, it is possible to make a plurality of copies from each document even though the document including a plurality of pages is scanned only once.
However, no conventional device has been able to scan a document placed on a scanning section for the scanned image to be stored in an image memory while another scanned image is being recorded on recording sheets. In other words, while a device is copying, it has not been able to scan other documents for copying. In short, copy reservation has not been made possible.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide an image forming device that enables a copy reservation.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an image forming device including a scanning means for scanning first image, a memory means for storing the scanned first image, a recording means for recording the stored first image, and a control means for causing the scanning means to scan another image of which copy is to be made, and causing the memory means to store the scanned another image, while the recording means is recording the stored first image.
Copy conditions may be determined and said another image may be scanned while the recording means is recording the stored first image. The image forming device may further include a display means for displaying that the scanning of said another image is ready while the recording means is recording the first image. The display means may display contents of setting for copy of said another image. A user of the device can know that copy for said another image is set when the user sees such display. The display means may display waiting time until the completion of recording of the first image. With such display, the user can do an extra work until the completion of the recording of the first image. The contents of setting for copy may include the number of pages of a document to be scanned, the number of copies to be made, and the size of the recording sheet. The control means may not cause the scanning means to scan said another image if a remaining capacity of the memory means is less than a predetermined volume. Accordingly, the memory means will not overflow. The display means may display that the scanning of said another image is not possible if the remaining capacity of the memory means is less than the predetermined volume. The user will not perform an operation of copy of said another image if the user sees such display. The display means may display how many pages worth of image is scanned by the scanning means. The user can know whether all pages of the document are scanned by seeing such display.
In the following detailed description describing the embodiments of the present invention, the image forming device corresponds to a copy-facsimile machine 1 (hereinafter called copy-facsimile machine), the scanning means corresponds to a scanning unit 14, the memory means corresponds to an image memory 18, the control means corresponds to MPU 11, ROM 12 and RAM 13, the recording means corresponds to the recording unit 15, and the display means corresponds to a display unit 17.